KLO threatens Mamata hours before her north Bengal trip

Kolkata: Just hours before Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is scheduled to leave for a three-day trip to north Bengal to attend a number of administrative and political functions there, a message from the separatist group, Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO) has emerged asking her “not to dare to step into the territories of the proposed Kamtapur state”.

The message has been issued by underground KLO chief, Jeevan Singh. KLO is an extremist Left-wing separatist group whose main demand is the formation of a separate Kamtapur state forked out of Cooch Behar, Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar, Malda, North Dinajpur and South Dinajpur districts in northern part of West Bengal, Kokrajhar, Bongaigaon, Dhubri and Goalpara districts in Assam, Kishanganj district in Bihar and Jhapa district in Nepal.

In the message, Singh has said there is no requirement of outsiders representing the West Bengal government within the proposed Kamtapur territory. “Mamata Banerjee! Do not step in the Kamtapur area. We will not tolerate any interference in the formation of Kamtapur. If anyone tries to do that through force, the situation will turn worse and there will be bloodbath,” Singh said in the message.

In the message, he also referred that the three BJP Lok Sabha members from north Bengal namely, Nisith Pramanik from Cooch Behar, John Barla from Alipurduar and Jayanta Roy from Jalpaiguri, too have expressed their consent towards formation of the new Cooch- Kamtapur state.

Trinamool Congress’s Cooch Behar district president, Partha Pratim Roy said that from this message of Jeevan Singh it is clear that KLO is hand-in-glove with the BJP in the conspiracy to separate north Bengal from the state. BJP Lok Sabha member, Jayanta Roy denied this and said that because of the lack of development in north Bengal, there had been separate statehood demands from various corners.

Mamata Banerjee will leave for north Bengal on Monday afternoon after attending a cabinet meeting in Kolkata. She will be returning on Wednesday afternoon.

Meanwhile, security has been beefed up in north Bengal, especially in the places where the chief minister is supposed to visit, in the backdrop of the threat message from KLO.

–IANS